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If you are not regular readers of Paul Willcocks at Paying Attention and Andrew MacLeod at The Tyee, you should be. They shine light on an expense payment of $167,342 to BC Innovation Council CEO Dean Rockwell, primarily for relocation expenses, and $80,469 paid to lobbyists to discuss BCIC’s compensation of its CEO with Government. Yes, unbelievable as it may seem, government now hires lobbyists to talk to government.

The BC Liberals are restraining some expenditures but apparently not those involving comfort for friends and insiders. Lobbying in Victoria is BC’s fastest growing industry so, no doubt, Jessica McDonald will soon be joining the ranks.

She is leaving the Premier’s office and Gordon Campbell is lawyering up. Allan Seckel, a “non-partisan” deputy attorney general, has been protecting Liberal backsides in the BC Rail scandal. Now, he replaces Jessica McDonald as deputy minister to the Premier. He receives a base salary of $295,000, an increase of $63,000 over that paid to McDonald.

I find it interesting that Premier Campbell, needing a Chief Executive Officer to manage the 35,000 member civil service and almost $1 billion a week of public spending, hired a lawyer. Not a person experienced in general management of a huge enterprise – or a medium sized enterprise – but, a lawyer. And, not just anyone. This Premier, who some believe should be in court himself over the sham sale of BC Rail, selects the lawyer who has been overseeing the administration of justice in British Columbia. Hmmm.

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Muskrat Falls was always a done deal, and a bad one says Pam Frampton, Saint John’s Telegram. "One week the project was all about clean energy, the next it was job creation, then it was all about being an affordable energy source, then it was a means of foiling Quebec, then it was a lure for mining companies.” The Progressive Conservatives’ sales pitch […]

In the 20 years to 2006, BC Hydro's charge per kilowatt-hour to residential consumers increased at 1/3 the rate of inflation. However, when Gordon Campbell's neoliberal friends decided BC's iconic utility was a ripe target for privatizing public wealth, things changed dramatically. In the 10 years to 2016, BC Hydro's charge per kilowatt-h […]

Every megaproject conceived and executed by BC Liberals in recent years has ended with massive cost overruns, despite the predictable “on-time and on-budget” claims. Most involved contractors with foreign domiciles. Check out the Port Mann bridge project, South Fraser Perimeter Road, BC Place renovation, Vancouver Convention Centre, Sea to Sky Highway, North […]

Racism and bigotry are nothing new. In my youth, I assumed these scourges would fade away through enlightenment ensured by modern education, communication and human migration made easier in a shrinking world. I was wrong.

A message to BC Hydro: “Figure out what you are supposed to be doing, then do it. W.A.C. Bennett established this vital crown corporation to provide reliable, affordable power to British Columbians. That's what it should be doing. Instead, it is forcing citizens to pay much higher prices to provide financial benefits to foreign owned companies and a ban […]

Large dams run 96 percent over budget on average, according to a University of Oxford study based on projects in 65 countries including Brazil and China. The study, published in the journal Energy Policy, showed that large dams also took about 2.3 years longer to complete than originally planned. That was about 44 percent longer than projected at the point o […]

If you are a member of a public service pension, you may know that retirement benefits have been cut in recent times. What has not been cut is remuneration of top executives at pension fund manager bcIMC, where it appears that compensation rises steadily, whether investment returns are good or bad.

Agreements between Postmedia – the country’s largest newspaper chain – and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), plus an equally disgraceful deal between the company’s Vancouver Province and the LNG industry have permanently stained the organization’s journalistic credibility… Once a newspaper is committed to a controversial view, it’s like […]

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.